Two Dollars a Head

One Hour Documentary

In 1923 the Canadian department of Agriculture paid $2.00 for Leslea Mair's grandfather. He was shipped from London to a farm in Canada. He never saw his family again.

When Regina-based filmmaker Leslea Mair began to ask why, she found she was part of a group of Canadians who share a common history. Yet they have been actively prevented from connecting to their relatives in England and each other, and the contribution their ancestors made to building Canada is mostly unrecognized. They have no national identity, and no way to connect as a group. Surprising, given that there are five million of them in Canada. They are the descendants of the British Home Children.

Two Dollars a Head looks at the legacy of the British Home Children experience, and the difficulties that keep the descendants apart from each other, and hinder re-connecting the family ties that were severed.